Work Text:
You weren’t sure when things exactly went wrong, but boy, were they wrong. When you went to bed, you felt perfectly fine—content, even—stomach satisfyingly full of delicious, albeit cheap, sushi and half a carton of cranberry juice. If you expected to wake up in the middle of the night to do anything, it would be to pee, not to throw up all of the contents of your stomach.
And yet, here you were, head in your toilet bowl in the early hours of the morning and your whole body aching with the aggression of your retching.
As you were desperately fighting for your life against your traitorous stomach, you nearly missed the feeling of someone pulling your hair back, preventing any more damage from being done to one of your most prized possessions.
“You’re okay, Honey. Let it out,” the words were accompanied by a soothing circle rubbed into your back. Though you tried your best to be as quiet as you could manage, you must’ve woken Jason up with the sound of your audible suffering.
Your partner’s words were comforting, the encouragement you desperately needed at such a low moment. Distantly, you thought about Jason’s warning now to eat raw fish from such a shady-looking establishment. You wished you’d actually listened to him, but your craving for the dish was stronger than your rationality.
“‘m sorry,” you mumbled, wiping your mouth with the back of your hand before you spoke again. “I didn’t mean to wake you up.”
“Who cares about sleep anyway?” he replied. You looked up at him from your vantage point. He looked exhausted, as he often did after a long week of missions and patrols—and yet, he was by your side.
“If my lips didn’t taste like stomach acid right now, I would totally kiss you,” you attempted a smile, but everything currently hurt. Everything including your face.
“How about I grab you some water, and you brush your teeth, then we can kiss all we want,” he said sweetly, surprisingly unphased by the fact that moments ago you were throwing up.
“Sounds like a great plan to me,” you said weakly, throat still stinging from overuse.
You closed your eyes, but felt Jason get up from behind you, going off to the kitchen to fulfil his end of the plan. Your task seemed simple enough: stand up, walk to the sink, swish some mouthwash around your mouth, then brush your teeth.
Unfortunately for you, you could only make it to step two before you encountered an issue. As you went to open the bottle of mouthwash, the scent of the liquid alone was enough to bring you to your knees, right back to square one on your bathroom floor, hugging your toilet like a family member you hadn’t seen in years.
You weren’t sure how long you were down, but you knew that your partner sat beside you for every single second of it. When you finally felt like you had nothing left to give, you laid all the way back on the cool bathroom floor and sighed aloud.
“I don’t think I’m gonna make it through the night, Jace,” you groaned. Your words were overdramatic, but you genuinely believed it. Besides, if your evening was going to be filled with more of what you’d experienced for the last half hour, you weren’t exactly sure you wanted to make it through the night.
“You will,” he assured you as he reclined next to you on the floor. “Maybe hop in the shower and see if that makes you feel any better?”
“I barely have the strength to talk to you right now, let alone shower,” you protested and threw your arm over your eyes. With the dramatics of your sickness being mostly over, you began to feel the slightest hint of embarrassment creep in. While you’d been sick a few times in the course of dating Jason, you couldn’t exactly recall another time when you’d been in this bad of shape.
“Give it a shot. I’ll be the shower lifeguard and make sure you don’t fall or anything.” He gently moved your arm from your face and leaned over you, as if he could read your mind and didn’t want you to hide yourself.
“You just wanna see me shower, you perv,” you squinted up at him, hoping that your expression said suspicion, rather than ‘I’m half dead.’
“Guilty,” he joked halfheartedly before pushing some stray hairs out of your face. “Seriously, though. I’ve met very few problems that a shower can’t fix. Or at least help.”
That was how you ended up in the shower, Jason sitting next to you just outside the cloudy glass door. As much as you hated to admit it, for the second time that night he was right about something—the warm water cascading over you did help you feel a little less like a reanimated corpse.
The problem arose when you went to grab your lavender body wash. With one flip of a lid, you were audibly gagging, your stomach doing cartwheels inside of you. You dropped the product like it was on fire, feeling slightly betrayed by the fact that not one, but two of your most reliable products had stabbed you in the back tonight.
“You okay?” Jason asked at the sound you produced.
“Just peachy,” you replied with gritted teeth.
You had enough sense about you to not attempt to use any other scented products for the night. Your shower descended into a very long rinse, which was still very needed.
Feeling decently refreshed after your shower, Jason helped you to dry off before handing you a fresh set of pajamas. If you didn’t love him already, this surely would’ve solidified it for you.
The two of you made it back to bed, your mind feeling much more settled than your treacherous stomach. You cuddled up to Jason’s side, leaning into his touch as he tenderly rubbed your shoulder.
You wanted to praise him, tell him how lucky you felt to be by his side, but the words died on your tongue as you drifted off to sleep. If nothing else, you could stomach your adoration for your partner.
The sun crept through your window, waking you up bright and early, despite the long night you had. You were pleasantly surprised to not be instantly attacked with a wave of nausea, but found that that pleasantness wouldn’t last too long.
It seemed like you were still unable to kick the bug, your morning spent rotating between your bathroom floor and your bed. Fucking shady sushi.
“I love you enough not to tell you that I told you so, even though I really want to,” Jason told you during a particularly annoying stint in the bathroom.
“You just did, so you clearly don’t actually love me,” you huffed, looking over at him with a stream of tears falling down your cheeks. “And when I feel better, I’m gonna kill you.”
“I’m willing to be a sacrifice if it helps you make better culinary decisions,” he replied, gently massaging your scalp.
“I know exactly where I’m gonna hide your body,” you grumbled out your threat.
A few hours into your morning from hell, you’d settled into somewhat of a routine. For the majority of the time, you laid on your back, scrolling on your phone and groaning uncomfortably every now and then while Jason read a book next to you. In a particularly painful minority of the time, you sat on the bathroom floor, waiting for waves of nausea to wash over you.
In one of your stints in the bedroom, you laid curled up in a fetal position with your back facing your boyfriend. Your positioning was on purpose, not wanting him to see the tears dripping down your face as you watched a particularly adorable cat video. You made a note to yourself that when you felt better, you needed to ask Jason about adopting one. After all, you’d been together long enough that a fur baby didn’t seem like a huge commitment.
You were distracted by your fantasy of adopting a cute little kitten, but not so much so that you didn’t notice the sound of the bed creaking beside you, letting you know that Jason had gotten out of bed. Whatever. His absence just meant that you could cry in peace.
When Jason returned, he was holding a plate with a plain piece of toast on it. “Are you crying?” was the first thing he said.
“No,” you lied, unsubtly wiping your face.
“Okay…” he trailed off, clearly not believing you. He approached your side of the bed, sitting down at your feet and extending the plate out to you. ”You need something in your stomach.”
“Since when are you the expert on food poisoning?” you asked skeptically, though the offer of food did sound tempting. Not a plain piece of bread though. A jar of pickles currently sounded much more your speed. On second thought, maybe some bread wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world, especially if it was sourdough. Or brioche. Even ciabatta sounded good.
“Since you spent the morning being sick. Come on,” he insisted, shaking the plate to emphasize his point.
He was probably right (goddamnit, not again), and he’d been so helpful over the last twelve hours, that the least you could do was be a good patient for him.
You nibbled at the bread, lamenting the fact that it wasn’t a specialty bread from your favorite bakery down the road. “You know what would be really good right now?” you asked.
“More suspicious sushi?” Jason joked.
“Fuck off,” you replied, setting down the bread. “Some chicken noodle soup. But not the canned shit, the good, homemade stuff. With some ginger, a little turmeric, maybe even a little lemon,” you hummed, pleasantly surprised that the thought of that specific food wasn’t making your stomach lurch.
“Sounds like I’m fucking off to the grocery store, then,” Jason replied. You had him so well-trained.
“You’re the best, Baby,” you praised. “Could you grab a jar of pickles too? The fresh ones that I like? They should be good to get my electrolytes up,” you explained, though you really just wanted some pickles.
“Anything else?” he asked, looking rather amused with your requests. At least he knew that the sick version of yourself had quite the flare for dramatics.
“I’ll call if I think of anything,” you replied, mood instantly improving with the thought of chicken noodle soup and pickles in your stomach soon.
By the time Jason returned, you’d ventured out of the bedroom and made it to the living room couch, donning a matching pair of sweatshirt and sweatpants from your boyfriend’s wardrobe. You were pleased to see Jason’s face in person, rather than on your phone as you had in the past hour, as you called your partner every time you thought of something new that sounded good and that you could stomach.
“You feeling any better?” he asked, sitting down next to you on the couch. He began to massage your calf out of instinct, which you didn’t particularly mind.
“A little. I think I’ll really feel better after you make me chicken noodle soup, though.”
“I’m starting to feel like you’re faking it,” he teased. Much to your dismay, you proved him wrong not even a half hour later. On the bright side, his soup was nearly done, giving you something new to help settle your stomach.
His soup did everything you needed it to—it was soothing by going down, warming all of your aching body, and it tasted delicious.
“I need to get sick more often,” you stated after wolfing down half the bowl of soup, eyes fixed on the episode of BBC’s Pride and Prejudice adaptation playing on your television screen.
“I don’t think that’s the right takeaway from this experience,” Jason was currently enjoying his own serving of the soup, allowing you to lean on him as you cuddled on the couch.
“Hmm… No, I think it is. Get food poisoning more often, let you take care of me more often, force you to cook for me more often, and most importantly: eat unlimited amounts of poorly prepared seafood.”
Jason rolled his eyes and shook his head, though you had a suspicion that he secretly liked being your caretaker. You knew it was important for him to feel important in order to feel secure in your relationship, and you couldn’t think of any other situation where you’d be more reliant on him than when you were under the weather.
“You secretly love this,” you voiced your inner monologue.
“I love you, not you being sick. There’s definitely a difference.”
“Sure…” you trailed off, unbelieving.
Another bowl of soup and a nap later, you were feeling much better. Enough so, that you insisted that Jason go out on patrol despite his protests.
That turned out to be a mistake, as just hours as you bid him farewell and laid down to sleep, you found yourself back in your bathroom, fighting to keep the contents of your stomach in your stomach.
When Jason arrived back at your apartment, you were groaning in the bathroom, your body feeling completely spent after a day of unrelenting sickness. He rushed to your side, still mostly in his tactical gear.
“I knew I shouldn't have gone out. How long have you been here?” he asked, his voice tinged with guilt.
Jason looked at you with such worry and concern, the sight of it making your heart drop. Before you could control it, you felt your eyes welling up with tears once again. You didn’t want him to feel bad about leaving you, especially when you’d been the one to tell him to go. You threw your arms around him and buried your face into his chest, partially to absolve him of his guilt, and partially in relief that your emotional support made it back home.
“It’s not your fault. I told you to go,” you insisted, voice muffled by your words being spoken into his suit. “Don’t be upset. It’s on me. Besides, I feel better now that you’re back.”
Jason kissed the top of your head and squeezed you like you might slip out of his arms if he didn’t hold you tight enough.
The two of you ended up in the shower together, with him using an unscented soap he’d picked up at the store that didn’t make you nauseous. He cautiously helped you wash up, not expecting you to return the favor, but allowing you to take your time with lathering him anyway. You found yourself blown away with just how accommodating Jason was of you, even after a long night in the city.
You curled up in bed together once again feeling rather satisfied, despite the knowledge that your stomach bug lingered. Regardless of the pain you were in, you knew that you wouldn’t have to suffer alone.
The following few days felt almost like you were trapped in a purgatory-like loop, going through a cycle of spending the early morning suffering in the bathroom, recovering slightly during the day, only to regress once more in the evening. You were exhausted from the whole ordeal, which was not made much better by your boss becoming more and more unbelieving that you were still out with food poisoning.
“Is it normal to have food poisoning for this long?” you asked as you picked at another piece of plain toast. You weren’t sure how much longer you could handle your newfound diet of plain toast, soup, and Gatorade.
“I don’t know,” Jason sighed, chewing on his own piece of toast. He’d shown himself to be even more supportive than you realized he even had the capacity to be, eating your boring diet right alongside you, so you wouldn’t feel so alone in your suffering. “Maybe it’s time to go to the doctor?”
“Seriously?” you sounded appalled by the notion of going to the doctor, but it had been days of you not getting better. If anything, at times you felt like you were regressing.
“I don’t know, maybe you got a parasite, or something,” Jason suggested, almost sounding like he’d been considering this possibility for a while.
“Seriously?” you hadn’t even humored the idea of having a parasite in you, but it was no secret that fish contained all sorts of creatures. You probably should’ve thought of that before you absolutely devoured raw fish from a place that you weren’t sure you could trust.
“I don’t know. Maybe it explains you being sick in the morning and feeling better as the day goes on. Maybe it feeds in the morning, or something.”
You fell nauseous at the thought of a creature inside of you, actively feeding on you. You set down your plate, appetite somehow even lower than it was before.
“I think I’ll make the appointment now.”
You were somehow lucky enough for your doctor to have a time for you to stop by her office that very day. She seemed slightly confused, if not intrigued, by your situation.
“I can’t say I’ve had anyone come to me with a parasite before,” she looked at your chart on her laptop. “Sounds like you might want to report this place to the Gotham Health Department.”
“I’m pretty sure I saw an F report displayed in their window,” Jason replied, making your doctor laugh. “I’m dead serious, too.”
“Jason,” you sighed. “Sorry about him. I think he only came so he can tell me that ‘he told me so’ when you tell me that I have a worm passenger inside of me now.”
“All good. Now, I want to try to rule a few things out before we do further testing. I’m just gonna go through a few symptoms. You let me know if you’ve experienced any of them lately. Let's say, in the past few weeks.”
“Sure,” you agreed, though you weren’t fully sure what relevance certain symptoms had when you only just gained a parasite. Maybe it’d been inside you lying dormant, only to be activated by your bad food choices.
“Bloating and constipation?”
“Mhm.”
“Fatigue?”
“Yeah.”
“Nausea, vomiting, or aversion to foods you typically enjoy?”
“God, yes.”
“Increased urination?”
“Uh, I guess?”
“Breast tenderness?”
“Well, now that you mention it…”
“Any changes in mood?”
“Yeah,” you nodded.
“Okay,” she nodded as well, looking away from her laptop to you. “Do you remember when your last period was?”
“I don’t know, like a month ago? I’ve never been good at tracking it,” you shrugged. “But I’m on the pill, so it does come regularly.”
She nodded again, this time a little slower. “Do you mind if we do a quick urine sample? Again, we just want to rule out other options before we pursue more serious testing.”
You certainly preferred peeing in a cup to getting your blood drawn, though with your new parasite friend, it was likely that you had a laundry list of unpleasant testing to be on the receiving end of. “Sure, that’s fine.”
When you returned to the room, your doctor was long gone, leaving you alone with your boyfriend.
“Do you think I’ll live?” you asked him jokingly, sitting back down in the examination chair..
“You fuckin’ better,” he replied, putting out a hand for you to hold. “I’d be so pissed if you died, I’d bring you back just to kill you myself.”
“Don’t be mad at me, be mad at my parasite,” you cradled your stomach, where you were sure the pest was living. “I’m thinking of naming it Nemo. Only fitting, right?”
“I don’t know about naming him. I don’t want him getting cozy in there. There’s not enough room for three in this relationship,” he playfully glared at your stomach.
“Don’t be jealous of Nemo just because we have something special,” you teased.
“I’m not. As long as Nemo knows his place and remembers that I was inside you first.”
“Ew,” you pinched the bridge of your nose. “On second thought, I don’t think I like this throuple stuff either. I do like you when you’re a little jealous, though.”
A knock on the door interrupted the bizarre conversation you and Jason were in the midst of, making the two of you instantly go quiet when the doctor walked in.
“So, we may have found the answer to your nausea. Thankfully, not a parasite…” she trailed off, like there would be a drumroll following her words. “It looks like you’re pregnant.”
Your jaw instantly dropped to the floor. In your search to pick it up from the ground, you turned to look at Jason, whose eyes looked like they were about ready to pop out of his head. You weren’t sure what you expected to hear your doctor say, but it certainly was not that, and if Jason’s reaction was any indicator, it seemed like he was in the same boat.
“We can do more testing if you really want to, but based on the symptoms you reported, and of course, the positive test, I’m gonna guess that it’s more likely that you’ve been experiencing some pretty severe morning sickness, and not suffering from a parasite.”
You heard your doctor talking, but didn’t process a word she said. You were pregnant?
What had you gotten yourselves into?